I transcribed this talk by Thanissaro, because I think it will be helpful to some folks in a book discussion group I'm participating in tonight.

Corrections welcome. Also, if anyone is in contact with Thanissaro, could you let him know about it? Perhaps it will be useful as raw material for an essay, or something.

"Seeds of Becoming"

Try to put aside all your other issues, just focus right here. 'Causeall the big issues in life get played out right here, in fact the seedsfor all of them are right here in the present moment.

I've said a number of times, how the Buddha's teachings on causality arelike modern teachings on chaos theory. One of the basic principles ofchaos theory is called 'scale invariance.' That what's happening on themacro level is the same thing as is happening on the micro level, nomatter what the size of your frame of reference, no matter what yourfocus, it's always the same things happening, simply writ large or writsmall. And it's convenient for us, because when this principle appliesto our awareness, it means we can watch the small things happening righthere, right now, and they teach us the lessons we need to know about thebig things.

And so this is why we come into the present moment, not because it'ssimply a nice place to be, because that's not always the case, sometimesthe present moment can be pretty miserable. But, the important issuesthat are happening in life are happening right here. The Buddha'steachings on bhava, or becoming, get played out right here. That's thebasic condition for birth, and the whole round of aging, illness anddeath.

It's a hard word to translate, 'becoming' isn't ideal, but it's hard tofind a better word. It's basically a state of being, and it can beeither at the micro level, the little worlds the mind creates foritself, or at the macro level, the human realm as a whole, that's abhava, and seeds for the large one are right here in the small ones.These are the worlds the mind creates. You can think about, say, yourhome, and there it appears right in your mind, the world of your home.Not the whole thing, but enough of a facsimile to say yeah, that's myhome.

And then you can enter into that little world, and adjust it andinteract with the various elements in there. And then after a while youmight lose interest and the mind creates another state of being foritself, another little world, and it goes from world to world to worldlike this. Or, a better way saying it is, these worlds appear, and thenthey disappear, and another one appears in its place. And it's becausethe mind does this, that it takes birth, that it provides the causes forlarger levels of becoming and then it takes birth in them.

So this is the process we want to understand if we want to get beyondaging illness and death, not go through the cycles again and again andagain, we have to know what's going on. How the little cycles behaveand that way we learn how the big cycles behave, what exactly is theprocess that keeps these things going. As the Buddha once said at themoment of his awakening, "House builder, I have seen you, throughcountless births, build these homes. And now I've seen the housebuilder and taken apart the house, and now the house builder will neverbuild another one again." You want to see that process of how the mindcreates these little homes for itself, with such force of habit that ifit can't create a good one for itself, it'll create a bad one foritself. All it asks is that you have that place to go. Because themind has a fear for having no place to go. This is what's calledbhava-tanha, it's one of the forms of craving that leads to suffering.Vibhava-tanha, that's a more controversial term, because it it's notdefined anywhere in the canon. Some passages indicated that it's desirefor annihilation, in other words that you don't have anything that hasto go anywhere, you're tired of going to these different places, but youwant to end up in a place where everything gets destroyed, or everythingstops so there's no more becoming. And the Buddha said that kind ofdesire leads to suffering as well, because what it does is it takes themind to a strange kind of becoming. It doesn't end the process, it justfreezes it for a while. It's like those cyborgs in science fictionmovies that get frozen for a number of centuries and then come out stillfunctioning. And the mind goes into these strange states, you canfreeze the process, but that doesn't end the process, it can start upagain.

But the macro level is being played out here on the micro level, solet's look at it, let's create a state of becoming. It's what we'redoing as we practice concentration, we create a little inner world forthe mind. First it's just a spot in the body and then you expand it tofill the whole body. And then you try to maintain it. And in doingthat you engage all the forms of fabrication: physical, verbal, mental.In other words, there's the breath and that's the physical fabrication,then there's directed thought and evaluation, those are the verbalforms, and then there's feeling and perception. And these are the basicbuilding blocks from which you create this world, the world of aconcentrated mind.

And you use your powers of directed thought and evaluation to work outthe disturbances, to filter them away or comb them out. A sense oftension or tightness in the breath, feelings of blockage in the mind,work through these things so that the elements of disturbance get moreand more and more refined. So you can see the state of becoming in andof itself as clearly as possible, in terms of its basic building blocks.And that way you can begin to take it apart. Because you see thatthere's really not much there, even in a good state of concentration.

Don't be too quick to take it apart, though. Get a little a bit ofconcentration and take it apart too fast, then the mind has no place tosettle down. I knew a monk one time in Thailand, who after a couple ofyears of meditation finally got his mind to settle down in a really nicestate of concentration. He went to tell another friend of his (theywere both out in the forest), and the friend said "Watch out, you'regoing to get stuck on that, make sure you don't get stuck on theconcentration." So the guy stopped, did his best not to get intoconcentration, he was told to start analyzing things, developinginsight, so this monk just started going all over the place, just keptlooking out, out, out and wasn't able to come back in, in, in. By thetime I met up with him, he'd gotten to the point where he couldn't gethis mind to concentrate at all. And it was a real shame, eventually hedisrobed.

This is what happens when you abort the process. Because you have toget attached to the state of concentration for you to really understandit. You want to keep coming back, coming back, coming back, because themore familiar you are with it, it's like a road that you travel dayafter day after day. The opportunity is there to know it in detail, andwhat happens a lot of times when people travel on a road day after daythey start blanking out, actually stop noticing things. It's like aperson gets into a state of concentration and then just doesn't want todevelop any discernment, just likes the blanking out, or the stillness,and just holds onto that and gets oblivious to other things, like theperson who drives the road from the Valley Center to Escondido every day,after a while you just don't notice anything. It's where a lot ofpeople are, their brains just go into automatic pilot.

But you want to do as a meditator is not to go into automatic pilot,just to get to know this territory as well as we can. Keep at it. Tryto figure out how you can maintain this state of concentration in allsorts of different circumstances, because you never know when theprecise effort that you're putting into it becomes really clear. Yousee, "Oh, this is how it's done, this is what's happening. This is howthose raw materials are being turned into something else," this littleworld of Texas, or the world of Thailand, or wherever the world happensto be at the time.

So the more consistent you are in maintaining this state, whatever youractivities, the more the chance that you'll have insight into exactlyhow it's created and how it's maintained, what uses it has and also howcan we take it apart. As the Buddha said, you understand the cominginto being, the passing away of these things, you understand theirallure, you understand their drawbacks and you understand the escapefrom them. That's when it really gets good. Because you take the stateof concentration as your model for all your other attachments and allyour other cravings, and all the states of becoming in the mind that arebuilt on attachment and craving. You take this as your model and youstudy it again and again and again, get really really sensitive to whatit's like to have the mind settle down, to be in a good state ofconcentration, how it can create that concentration, how it can maintainit, how it loses it. So you understand the whole process and you beginto see precisely where in the process the craving and the attachment orcraving and clinging kick in.

So these are some of the things that can be found right here in thepresent moment. The larger issues of birth, aging, illness and death;and rebirth, re-aging, re-illness and re-death; they get played outhere, moment by moment by moment, right here in the present moment. Andif you learn how to look right here, you can see them. The more stillyou can make the mind, the easier it is, both to be in a position tolook and also just to see if you've got what you're looking at stil, aswell. You're in a much better position to see even the slightestmovements. It's those slight movements that build up, get re-iteratedagain and again, to build up into large movements. And small states ofbeing and becoming in the mind build up eventually into large ones, whenyou leave this life and everything in this state of becoming begins tocome rushing in at you, and you've got to get out of the way, the mindwill naturally try to create another state of being, it will go foranother state of being, whatever comes up in the mind, if you haven'ttrained the mind to be mindful and alert, you just jump right atwhatever comes.

But if you've trained it, you don't have to jump. You can step aside,get out of the way. Not jump on these things as they happen, and thatopens up lots of new possibilities in the mind. If you haven't yet seenthe deathless, maybe at that point of death, that's the possibility thatwill open as you keep yourself mindful and alert not to jump at statesof being and becoming as they form. But that's a skill which has to bedeveloped. The more it's developed the better your chances are ofhaving that skill in your repertoire when you really need it. So, why wekeep focusing back in: the present, the present, the present. We talksometimes about the future, we talk sometimes about the past, but themain point is to focus on what you're doing right here, right now.

Because everything you're going to need to know is right here, rightnow, so really get to know this spot as thoroughly as you can. Spend alot of time here, be observant. The Buddha made a comment about gettingto know other people, getting to know their virtue, getting to knowtheir resilience, their honesty, their wisdom. You have to focus on theright aspects of their behavior you have to be observant and that takesa lot of time. Well, the same thing happens and applies to your ownmind. You have to focus at the right spots, where craving and clinginggive rise to becoming. And you have to be observant and you have to bewilling to put in a lot of time. Because it's only then that you reallysee. If you try to get other people to see it for you, they can't solvethe problem of craving, clinging and becoming. It's the person wholooks who solves the problem, for him or herself.

Last edited by fivebells on Thu May 16, 2013 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Buddha's teachings on bhava, or becoming, get played out right here. That's thebasic condition for birth, and the whole round of aging, illness anddeath.

It's a hard word to translate, 'becoming' isn't ideal, but it's hard tofind a better word. It's basically a state of being, and it can beeither at the micro level, the little worlds the mind creates foritself, or at the macro level, the human realm as a whole, that's abhava, and seeds for the large one are right here in the small ones.These are the worlds the mind creates.

SEEDS OF EXISTENCE[Notice that the Buddha, instead of giving a definition of becoming (bhava) in response to this question, simply notes that becoming occurs on three levels. Nowhere in the suttas does he define the term becoming, but a survey of how he uses the term in different contexts suggests that it means a sense of identity in a particular world of experience: your sense of what you are, focused on a particular desire, in your personal sense of the world as related to that desire. In other words, it is both a psychological and a cosmological concept. For more on this topic, see The Paradox of Becoming, Introduction and Chapter One. Thanissaro http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html]

Ven Punnaji

Analysis of Experience

Normally, we experience "existence" when we think in terms of an existing "experiencer" experiencing the existing, "object of experience". There are three parts to that experience as follows: Experiencer___Experience___Experienced (Subject) (Object) The term "existence" (bhava) refers to the apparent existence of the "subject" and the "object" of experience, on which are based all emotional relationships between the subject and the object. The normal paradigm is the experience of the existence of a subject and an object, and the relationship between them. It is to think that there is a "subject" experiencing an "object" cognitively and affectively. Through the vipassana meditation the meditator becomes aware of this experience as only an "experience", instead of as a real "existence" and a relationship. This means, the "existence" of the subject and the object is seen as an "experience" only, or as a mere product of the process of perception, or of experiencing.

In other words, the subject and the object are seen as "creations of the mental process". This means, the process of experiencing precedes the notion of the existence of subject and object, not vise versa. This may be stated as, "experience precedes existence". It is seeing that "experience" is the ultimate foundation of "existence". This uncommon paradigm may be called the "experiencing of experience" which is quite different from the common paradigm of the "experience of existence". This is the paradigm shift from "existence" to "experience". When this happens, all subject/object relationships are seen as meaningless.

This paradigm shift can take place only by letting go of all attachments to objects of experience, the subjectively experienced "self", and all relationships, through depersonalization. This paradigm shift is the freedom from the experience of existence, and all the suffering accompanying it. This is called the "cessation of existence" (bhava nirodha). When this happens, all sufferings, fears, worries and anxieties come to an end. This is NIBBANA, which has been defined by the Buddha as "the cessation of existence" (bhava nirodho nibbanam).

This cessation of existence is not a death but the freedom from the dream of existence, which is an awakening to the reality of "impersonal experience". Therefore Nibbana (Nirvana) is the experience of the ultimate reality of impersonal experience. This idea may be confusing at the beginning, but it becomes clearer as one advances in meditation.

"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle: From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.

"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications.

Look at this world:Beings, afflicted with thick ignorance,are unreleasedfrom delight in what has come to be.All levels of becoming,anywhere,in any way,are inconstant, stressful, subject to change.

Seeing this—as it has come to be—with right discernment,one abandons craving for becoming,without delighting in non‐becoming.From the total ending of cravingcomes dispassion & cessation without remainder:

Unbinding.

For the monk unbound,through lack of clinging/sustenance,there is no renewed becoming.He has conquered Mara,won the battle,gone beyond all becomings—

Such. — Ud 3:10﻿

Don't be anything! Don't be anything at all! Being a Buddha is a burden. Being a Pacceka is a burden. Just don't desire to be. ''I am the monk Sumedho,'' ''I am the monk Ānando''... That way is suffering, believing that you really exist thus. ''Sumedho'' is merely a convention. Do you understand?

If you believe you really exist, that brings suffering. If there is Sumedho, then when someone criticizes you, Sumedho gets angry. Ānando gets angry. That's what happens if you hold these things as real. Ānando and Sumedho get involved and are ready to fight. If there is no Ānando or no Sumedho, then there's no one there - no one to answer the telephone. Ring ring - nobody picks it up. You don't become anything. No one is being anything, and there is no suffering.

We've all had the experience when we're asleep of finding ourselves in a dream and, for a while, believing that what's happening in the dream is real. Then something alerts us that something is wrong with the dream, and finally to the fact that we're dreaming. Usually that's enough for us to wake up, to pull out of the dream.

That process is very similar to the way we create mental worlds and emotional states during our waking life, because our picture of the world around us is always partial. It's always stitched together out of bits and pieces of what we've encountered through the senses. We have a notion of what makes sense, and as long as it makes sense and seems to be real, we can stay stuck in that state of mind. Then something strikes us as incongruous, as not fitting in. We realize, "Oh, that was an imaginary world." That's when we pull out. But then we find ourselves in another world, which may be better, and may not.

The ability to recognize what's incongruous, what's wrong with a world: That's an important skill. Without it, we get stuck in states of mind — what the Buddha called bhava, or becoming — where we can suffer very intensely. We focus on certain things in the world around us, certain ideas about who we are in that world, and everything else gets filtered through that particular picture. Other people's actions, for example, get filtered in this way, so that someone acting with perfectly good intentions may seem to be evil, sneaky, unreliable. Or vice versa. They actually may be evil, sneaky, and unreliable, yet we see them as being perfectly reasonable, perfectly trustworthy. But because the mental world we inhabit has its own inner coherence, we think it's accurate and real. ...

Mindfulness is what creates the bridges between these different states. You remember that you were in one state and now you're in another. And the possibility of slipping back into another distracted state is always there, so you've got to keep on top of things to be alert for any signs of the mind preparing to slip away. It has its tricks. It has its slight moment of blanking out, after which you wake up in another world. But if you can use mindfulness as a bridge across that blanking out, it's a lot easier to direct the mind from one state of becoming into another when you want to. And it's a lot easier to stay in a state of becoming when you want to stay.

n this way, you don't need an outside power. All you need is your own ability to recognize, "There's something wrong here and I can get out." This "something wrong" is the fact something is creating a burden on the mind that doesn't have to be there. To get out, you don't need an outside power. You just need to remember that you have the ability to create a different sense of who you are, and to create a different world to inhabit, one that's healthier.

The ultimate goal of the practice, of course, is to be able to get out of all these worlds entirely. That's what it really means to wake up. But in the meantime, you can have your little awakening when you wake up in the middle of one of your created worlds, and say, "Oh, this is suffering. It doesn't have to be here." And you look in the right place instead of placing the blame on other people in the past or in the present. The suffering doesn't come from them. The suffering comes from the way the mind thinks about things. It creates impossible situations and then burdens itself with them. It doesn't have to do that. Mindfulness, concentration, and discernment form the way out.

The ability to recognize what's incongruous, what's wrong with a world: That's an important skill. Without it, we get stuck in states of mind — what the Buddha called bhava, or becoming — where we can suffer very intensely. We focus on certain things in the world around us, certain ideas about who we are in that world, and everything else gets filtered through that particular picture. Other people's actions, for example, get filtered in this way, so that someone acting with perfectly good intentions may seem to be evil, sneaky, unreliable. Or vice versa. They actually may be evil, sneaky, and unreliable, yet we see them as being perfectly reasonable, perfectly trustworthy. But because the mental world we inhabit has its own inner coherence, we think it's accurate and real. ...

Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

(from the movie The Matrix)

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.

There is yet another teaching the understanding of which helps in the understanding of death. It is the Truth of Becoming or bhava, which is a corollary to the Truth of Change or anicca.

Becoming, or bhava, is also one of the factors in the scheme of Dependent Origination. The Truth of Becoming, like the Truth of Change, applies to everything. While the Truth of Change states that nothing is permanent but is ever-changing, the Truth of Becoming states that everything is always in the process of changing into something else.

Not only is everything changing, but the nature of that change is a process of becoming something else, however short or long the process may be. Briefly put, the Truth of Becoming teaches us that: "Nothing is, but is becoming." A ceaseless becoming is the feature of all things. A small plant is always in the process of becoming an old tree. There is no point of time at which anything is not becoming something else.http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el102.html

Loka Sutta: (Surveying) the World

I have heard that on one occasion, when the Blessed One was newly Awakened — staying at Uruvela by the banks of the Nerañjara River in the shade of the Bodhi tree, the tree of Awakening — he sat in the shade of the Bodhi tree for seven days in one session, sensitive to the bliss of release. At the end of seven days, after emerging from that concentration, he surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw living beings burning with the many fevers and aflame with the many fires born of passion, aversion, and delusion. Then, on realizing the significance of that, he on that occasion exclaimed:

This world is burning.Afflicted by contact,it calls disease a "self,"for by whatever means it construes [anything],that becomes otherwise from that.Becoming otherwise,the world is held by becoming afflicted by becomingand yet delights in that very becoming.Where there's delight, there is fear.What one fears is stressful.This holy life is livedfor the abandoning of becoming.

"Whatever priests or contemplatives say that liberation from becoming is by means of becoming, all of them are not released from becoming, I say.

"And whatever priests or contemplatives say that escape from becoming is by means of non-becoming, all of them have not escaped from becoming, I say.

This stress comes into playin dependence on all acquisitions.With the ending of all clinging/sustenance,there's no stress coming into play.Look at this world:Beings, afflicted with thick ignorance,are unreleasedfrom delight in what has come to be.All levels of becoming, anywhere, in any way,are inconstant, stressful, subject to change.Seeing this — as it has come to be —with right discernment,one abandons craving for becoming,without delighting in non-becoming.From the total ending of cravingcomes fading & cessation without remainder: Unbinding.For the monk unbound,through lack of clinging/sustenance,there's no further becoming.He has conquered Mara, won the battle,gone beyond all becomings — Such.

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.